Room in My Heart

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything related to Final Fantasy VI. In addition, "Room In My Heart" is the title of a song by Jonatha Brooke, which inspired this story.

 

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They left me behind.

How dare they?

A dragon charges into my path, and I skirt it through the aftermath of a Smoke Bomb. Two Ninja attack me then, and one manages to singe me with a Fire Skean before the Doom spell severs their souls from their bodies. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t waste magic and items so freely, but this is an emergency.

They’re going to try to stop Kefka without me. I can’t let them.

I pass a blackened heap of meat near the Floating Island’s central staircase, and know by the thickness of the smoke rising from it that I can’t be far from my goal. Indeed, as soon as I clear the last step of the nearby staircase, there they are: Edgar, Terra, and Relm. Beyond them stands Gestahl, and beyond him, Kefka.

Beyond all of us, balanced on the brink of the descent to the blurry land masses and oceans below us, stand three slabs of too-well-carved rock. The Goddesses. The source of all magic, the force behind Creation, the pillars on which it stands.

In Kefka’s hands.

“Celes…” Terra says, but I ignore her.

“I came to stop you,” I say, and Gestahl smiles.

“Did you, my dear?” He raises his arms, and I barely get my Runic blade up in time to catch his spell. The pink light that surrounds my sword would have told me that it was an amplified version of Golem’s Stop spell even if I hadn’t seen my friends fall to their knees, their expressions frozen into caricatures of varying horror.

No… not friends. Never that. Comrades, at best.

“Celes.” Gestahl lowers his arms, and his tone becomes soft, almost kind. I do my best not to look at him, which leaves me staring at Kefka. Flashes of Leo’s torn body pass through my mind’s eye, overlaid with Kefka’s painted, cackling visage, and my left foot slides backward, barely a fraction of an inch. Though no one else could have possibly seen the movement, it tells me something very important: I want to run away, and if I’m not careful, I’ll do so.

It seems that, with no one to lean on, I am a coward. That won’t matter, however, as long as I can stand and fight. And I can. I will.

I promised I would.

“Celes…” Gestahl repeats, and his eyes seize mine. “It must have been so hard for you.” He lifts his hands, not into a wizard’s pose but a father’s. “Welcome home.”

“Home?” I look at the gruesome walls of the Continent, and become aware of the stench emanating from the carcass below us. “Do you call this home?”

Gestahl smiles again. “I was speaking figuratively.” He motions to Kefka, who unsheathes his sword and hands it, hilt first, to him. “I’m willing to offer you a chance.” He swings the sword in an arc before him with a dexterity that no diplomat, much less one of his years, should possess, and I wonder which Esper’s power granted him that gift. “I’m willing to offer you redemption.”

“At a price.”

The sword stops, and I don’t miss the fact that its point is aimed squarely at Terra. “No repentance is sincere without penance.” He motions me forward. “Come.”

I obey, still holding my Runic blade at my side. My attention never leaves Kefka’s smirking face, but he shows no sign of treachery. Fortunately, I need no more proof of his untrustworthiness. “You want me to kill them, I suppose.”

Gestahl nods. “Always such a smart girl.” His face becomes apologetic. “I’m sure you understand the need for such a gesture. We have to make sure that you are free of Returner sympathies before we allow you to return, and the strongest pledges are written in blood.” He snaps the sword hilt out toward me, and I see that it bears a Magicite shard in place of a pommel jewel. That explains Gestahl’s proficiency with it.

“Why this sword?” I glare at Kefka. “Have you developed a Slave Blade now?”

Gestahl chuckles. “Celes, my dear, you are far too mistrustful. The weapon is symbolic, nothing more.” The sword hilt sinks a few inches. “Remember who we are. There was a time when you would have laid down your life for me, when my word was law to you.” A glint passes through his deadened eyes. “You once burned a city on my whim.”

“I am no longer your General,” I reply.

“True enough. But I’m offering you a way back to that time, to that identity.” The sword rises to its former level. “Think of it. Security. Glory. Belonging.” His eyes adopt a hungry gleam. “Power.”

I exhale, silently. Yes, power. It never boiled down to anything else. Power is the reason that Leo was killed, the justification behind sacrificing Espers in order to create Magitek weaponry. It is the force that drives the Empire’s senseless, ceaseless slaughter. All of this, at its deepest point, is the product of the hunger for power.

In many ways, I am in fact Gestahl’s daughter. I am the child that was born of his greed.

“As you say, your Excellency.” I sheath my Runic blade and take the sword from him. Energy surges through my arm, and both Gestahl and Kefka grin. For the first time, I realize how idiotic their avarice has made them, how blind they have become. They believe that people can be manipulated so easily, that even loyalty can be bought with the strength of a god.

They are no longer aware that emotions exist.

I turn my back to them, despite the violent protest of my soldier’s instincts. As I walk toward Terra, I expect to feel magic tear through my body, and die listening to the sound of Kefka’s wretched laugh. Even as I stand over her, and raise the sword, I am expecting to be struck down by them. Do I deserve anything more, for underestimating them so gravely?

The only indication I have of their continued presence, however, is Gestahl’s breathless whisper. “Go on, Celes. Destroy her.”

I look into her eyes, so purely innocent beneath the partial veil of her green hair, and I sigh. “Power only breeds war,” I whisper to her. I know that, of all of them, she will understand me best. “I wish I’d never been born.”

I raise the sword so that its blade is perpendicular to my shoulders, and cast a Haste spell. I hear Kefka’s sharp intake of breath as, presumably, he detects my use of magic; then, as he opens his mouth to warn Gestahl of my betrayal, I drive his own sword into his stomach. Bloodlust rises within me, compelling me to jerk out the blade and hack at him until I feel satisfied, but I settle for twisting the sword deeper into his pulsating innards.

“Die, you fucking freak,” I hiss.

He inhales shakily, and I sweep his feet out from under him as I let go of his sword and reclaim my Runic blade. Gestahl is beginning to cast another spell when I turn back in his direction, and I raise my free hand to him, allowing just enough frigid energy to collect around it to constitute fair warning. “Don’t even try it,” I say.

He glowers at me, but lowers his arms. “What do you plan to do now, Celes?”

I take a deep breath, and divert part of my awareness to maintaining the magical aura around my hand. “You will dispel the magic you’ve placed on the others, and surrender all weapons, Magicite, and items in your possession to me. Once you have been thusly disarmed, you will be taken to our airship and conducted to Vector.” My sword quivers; I steady it immediately. “Emperor Gestahl, you are under arrest.”

I cannot accurately describe the feeling that suffuses me as I hear myself speak these words. There is a powerful sense of unreality, of just how much things have changed since the days when, as Gestahl himself said, I was no more than his obedient servant. I am reminded of a time when I would have exchanged the lives of the world’s population for the chance to aid in the advancement of Gestahl‘s new world order. Now, I will not even kill three agents of the Returners for the chance at ultimate power.

Of all of us, perhaps I have changed the most.

Behind me, I hear a faint scraping, and that is my only warning before Kefka’s laughter explodes inches from my left ear. “Did you really think that would kill me, Celes?” he coos.

I spin on my heel and loose the level 2 Ice spell that, only moments before, I was threatening Gestahl with; the magic strikes Kefka full-on, removing the Vanish status that enabled him to approach me unnoticed, but he seems undamaged by it. In my peripheral vision, one of the Goddesses flickers, and I realize what must have happened. It’s an advanced version of my Runic ability. But why wasn’t Gestahl’s magic affected?

“You stupid bitch,” Kefka growls, and I realize how diverted my attention is only when his fist, much stronger than it should be, connects with my wrist. My sword flies from my hand and skids to the edge of the platform; I stagger, and Kefka strikes me across the face. This time, his blow is imbued with some sort of Wind magic, and I land heavily on the uneven surface a few meters below the platform’s right edge, far too close to the empty space beneath for my comfort. My nails chip as I claw for a handhold in the rock, but I manage to steady myself at least enough to override the sudden wave of vertigo. That, however, is all I feel capable of doing. If either of them comes after me now, I’m finished. There’s no way I can fight back.

Instead, when the ringing in my ears subsides, I hear Gestahl shouting about reviving the Statues, and my heart sinks even further than I imagine it would have if Kefka were leaning over me to cast a Whirlwind spell. He can’t. Not even Kefka could be that crazy.

Immediately, I realize the fundamental error in that statement, and begin trying to claw my way back onto the platform.

From this angle, I can only infer what’s happening between Kefka and Gestahl from senses other than sight. I hear Gestahl attempting to cast extremely high-level spells, and Kefka’s laughter: this tells me that Gestahl’s magic has also been rendered useless. I hear the crackle of lightning bolts, though the sky is still clear, and smell singed hair, clothing, and, finally, flesh. Then, as my hand strikes the ground inches from my sword hilt, I hear Gestahl murmur something, and then the sound of something being dragged to the other end of the platform.

I do my best not to see the rapidly-disappearing spot of black and red hurtling down to the world below.

I am sure that, in this most recent betrayal, I have witnessed the extent of Kefka’s atrocity. This certainty lasts only as long as it takes for me to heave myself up far enough to watch Kefka go to one of the Statues and begin pushing against it.

“What do you think you’re doing, Kefka?” I demand, momentarily forgetting my strategic disadvantage. “Move the Statues, and you’ll--”

“Destroy the world. Yes, I know.” He laughs. “You make it sound like a bad thing!”

And then, the Statue’s base begins to scrape against the ground, and I can no longer muster the will to resist. It’s over. We’ve lost, and it was all for nothing. I suffered for nothing.

I hear the other Statues moving very distantly, as though the sound is being broadcast over a great area by very weak equipment. Then, suddenly, I am lifted into the air, and land heavily in the centre of the platform. My blade sparks against the ground as I land, and I am thankful for the soldier’s instincts that made me grab it so unconsciously. Blackness passes over me, like an impossibly brief eclipse, and I hear Shadow’s grave voice whisper, “Remember your promise. What would he think, to see you give up now?”

I draw breath to ask him how he knows of my promise, and where he got the idea that it was any of his business. But it’s too late: he’s already trapping Kefka in the Statues’ field, and I wonder what knowledge guided him to so effective an act. Ninja are not usually equipped with knowledge of advanced magical lore.

“Go!” he shouts, and I feel Terra’s hand on my shoulder as Edgar crouches beside me. “I can’t stop it, but I can slow him down. Get out of here!”

“Can you stand?” Edgar asks, speaking against my ear in order to make himself heard over the gathering storm. I look up at the grey sky, and wonder whether I will ever see it blue again.

“Yes,” I say, and both he and Terra back away to give me room to do so. “The Statues--”

“Shadow knows what he’s doing,” Edgar says, in a tone that tells me that Shadow is already dead to him.

“You think you can hold me here, you son of a back-alley whore?” Lightning crackles through the sky, presumably as a reflection of Kefka’s rage. A bolt strikes the ground immediately beside Shadow, and Terra takes my hand.

“Come on. Let’s go,” she says.

“Another corpse in our wake?” I say, perhaps a little too reproachfully.

“Better him than all of us!” shouts Relm from the other side of the platform. “Move it, or I’ll leave you here!”

“You won’t get away!” Kefka calls as we slide down the slope behind Relm. “Where can you run, when the world is mine?”

I can only wonder how long there will be a world to rule over.

 

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The ground cracks under our feet and breaks apart behind us; we barely have time to defeat the monsters that rise from the dust of the crumbling rock as we press onward, toward the edge of the island. My legs hurt, and I find it hard to breathe, but the most devastating sensation is not any of these minor physical complaints.

It is the sudden consciousness of the fact that I am still running, as I have been since I destroyed Maranda. I have been chased by many things: the spectre of the Empire’s corruption, the certain death of their imprisonment, the danger of friendship, the vulnerability of love. No matter what has threatened me, though, I only seem to have one coping mechanism: escape. Even now, it should be me in Shadow’s place: righting the Empire’s wrongs should fall to an Imperial, not a mercenary. How can I call myself a General, a soldier, when I cannot even fulfill that task, when I run from that least of my duties, of my unpaid penances?

I stop suddenly, and Terra turns from the ashes of her freshest kill to look at me. “I have to go back,” I say.

“You can’t,” she says. “The path’s cut off. We have to keep going forward, or we’ll--”

“I don’t care! I have to go back. I have to try to fix this. Even if…” I look away from her. “I have to do what I can, even if all I can do is die.”

“Will you listen to yourself?” Relm waves her paintbrush at me in what I assume she intends as an authoritative gesture. “What do you think getting killed is going to help? Whether you’re alive or not, the world’s still going to fall apart.”

“She’s right, Celes,” Edgar says, lifting his hockey mask as he lowers his Chainsaw. “For now, we have to concentrate on getting out of here. We can’t do anything else.”

“You don’t understand--” I begin, but the ground under me starts to shake before I can finish my sentence, and Edgar grabs my wrist.

“That’s it. We’re going.” His absolute conviction reminds me of his station in life more powerfully than the most ornate crown ever could. “Are you going to walk, or am I going to have to drag you?”

I look into his eyes, and know that I shouldn’t argue with him. More importantly, I couldn’t, even if I tried.

Maybe, one last time, I can forgive myself the weakness of retreat.

 

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Shadow lands silently beside me as we complete the leap of faith from the Floating Continent’s eastern extremity to the imagined safety of the Blackjack’s deck. Behind us, the last sections crumble to pieces, and I stare into Shadow’s mask, trying to discern the extent of what he was able to accomplish.

He gives me the answer that the realist in me expects. “I couldn’t stop it.” There is no regret in his voice, no guilt over what that means to the thousands whose lives will be affected by his powerlessness.

No, not his. Mine. The fault was mine first; how can I blame him for failing to repair it?

Setzer clears his throat as we move away from the shower of debris that was once the Continent. “So, what happens now?”

We look at each other, each of us equally bereft of answers. The sky is completely black now, and even the breeze of our passage is no longer tangible. Strago fingers the gem set into his Thunder Rod nervously; Sabin paces a section of the deck without any of his monastic equilibrium. I breathe the thick silence in with the humid air, and it nearly chokes me.

Before I can draw enough breath to cough, however, the Blackjack is torn in two. From that point, my perceptions are difficult to segregate: I hear screaming, and watch others fall to what must be their death. I sense the futility of Strago trying to cast a Float spell on Relm, and feel Locke grab for me as I begin my descent toward the roiling ocean below. His fingertips only brush my cape; like so many others, he has reached out a fraction too late to make any difference.

I seem to fall so slowly that, at times, I feel as though I’m hanging suspended in the air, watching the end of the world unfold beneath me. I think of the people beneath me, who are surely dying, and feel as though I bear at least an indirect blame for each of their deaths. I wonder what happened to Kefka, and whether he has really won, and what he will do, now that he has the ultimate power. I wonder how it must feel, to hold your life’s goal in the palm of your hand, to have your most profound dream realized.

I wonder what it’s like to have profound dreams.

As the darkened sea draws closer to me, and I begin to distinguish individual waves through the general frothing, I am seized by no flashes of my past. I do not cry for unfulfilled potential, or for the life which is about to be taken from me: I never wanted either. All there is room for in my heart is guilt for the fact that I allowed this to happen. Though my only sin was being an idealistic child, and I have since fought as best I can to make restitution for it, I have only succeeded in making things worse. Perhaps some sins are beyond redemption.

And then, I strike the ocean. Saltwater fills my nose, my mouth, my lungs, and I close my eyes.

The darkness devours even the guilt.
 

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